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oa Mapping the production stage of a video game localization project with actor-network theory
- Source: Digital Translation, Volume 12, Issue 2, Oct 2025, p. 150 - 178
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- 13 Feb 2025
- 01 Oct 2025
- 17 Oct 2025
Abstract
Abstract
The video game localization industry has undergone rapid development and expansion, entailing newly emerging roles, and technologies. Academia has strived to keep up; however, due to industry restrictions, researchers and institutions lack an in-depth understanding of what occurs within the production stage of a project, and how the various professionals interact. This research delineates and contextualizes the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the production stage of localization projects. Actor-network theory (ANT) is utilized to map and trace the actions and relationships, between the human and non-human actors involved in a Chinese-to-English video game localization project. This involved observing four professional translation teams working on the same text and has enabled a clear delineation of the complex roles and responsibilities of the linguists and project managers. Furthermore, it highlights how different roles require different skillsets.
